Enclosed
by AndiKaneUnderwood
Summary: He may not yet be able to identify the strange floating feeling in his chest that fluttered when he was near his partner (whatever they were now), but he knew Danno needed him. And Steve wouldn't let Danny down.


Enclosed

By: AndiKaneUnderwood

 **Set during S.4 E.19 "Ku I Ka Pili Koko (Blood Brothers)".**

 **Follows my two stories, "Why?" and "What Darkness Brings to Light", but can stand alone.**

 **Before we go on, it's important to mention that there are a few things that I have tweaked.**

 **The stories "Why?", "What Darkness Brings to Light", and "Enclosed" (this story you are currently reading) are all connected, but all of them can stand alone.**

 **"Why?" is about the relationship between Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams and why they act the way they do towards each other.**

 **"What Darkness Brings to Light" is about Catherine's realization that Steve isn't in love with her.**

 **"Enclosed" is how Danny and Steve find out they are in love with each other.**

Danny's claustrophobia steamed from getting buried in an old fox hole when he was young and stupid and always ready to take a dare.

His best friend Billy had told him to go in the fox hole. Danny, while ambitious and impulsive, wasn't stupid and told Billy no.

Billy asked if he was chicken.

Danny, as teenage boys often do, set out to prove Billy wrong and make the older boy eat his words.

He crawled in, nervous and cautious and wary of any foxes that could be there, and sat in the middle of the den. "Alright, Billy! I'm here!"

There was no response.

"Billy?"

Still no answer.

Danny crawled forwards to find out why Billy wasn't answering, but suddenly found himself coughing up dirt as it poured into the den.

When everything settled, Danny was trapped in the den with nothing but darkness as his company.

"Hey!" he cried, "Hey! Hey, I'm down here! Someone help!"

He screamed, he shouted, he yelled himself hoarse. But no one came and no one heard.

It wasn't until almost a full 24 hours later that someone found him and got him out.

Danny had been afraid of small, tightly enclosed spaces ever since.

 _Hawaii Five-0~Hawaii Five-0~Hawaii Five-0_

Now, having a Panic attack in this stupid place wasn't necessarily the best thing for him to do, but Danny's fears either hadn't heard or didn't care.

He was trapped, suffocating under 300 pounds of concrete. There was a pain in his lower right side, there was a block crushing his chest, the Panic was beginning to overtake him.

He didn't think this would've been so bad if he hadn't been trapped in a coffin only a few days earlier; he still hadn't gotten over the _last_ scare he had, why in the world was this happening?

Suddenly, the rubble above him shifted and all Danny could think was, _oh, God, I'm gonna die, please God don't let me die here, please I don't want to die, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, can'tbreathe, can'tbreathecan'tbreathe!_

Then, there's Steve's voice, piercing through the haze his Panic had created.

"Danny!" Steve cried, seeking his friend out.

Danny couldn't get in a big enough breath to call back, what little breath he could get was wasted in whimpers and moans of pain.

Danny struggled to push back the wave of Panic that threatened to overtake him again and took assessment of what he could feel.

It was a few minutes before his foggy brain registered that his right arm wasn't a pinned as he'd originally thought, the concrete above it wasn't weighted.

He moaned as loudly as he could, a not-so-over-exaggerated version of exactly how much pain he was in, and pushed his arm through the rubble.

"Danny!" Steve cried, quickly running over and Danny felt it when Steve grabbed his hand.

Relief crashed over him and suddenly he wasn't alone in a collapsed foxhole, Steve was there and everything would be fine.

Deep down, something stirred in his chest and Danny was hit with the realization that he was in love.

He chuckled, witch turned into a groan almost immediately when something protested greatly to his moment of humor.

Honestly, at this point in time, he wasn't even surprised.

Not even when he was pulled from the wreckage of that stupid concrete building and the first thing Steve did was kiss his breath away.

 _Hawaii Five-0~Hawaii Five-0~Hawaii Five-0_

Steve could see very well that Danny was on the edge of a Panic attack and he couldn't believe it, but he'd kissed his partner.

And Danny hadn't pushed him away, but pulled him closer.

Steve had known for a long time that what he felt for Danny went far passed "partners" or "friends", he'd thought maybe "brother" was a better term.

Then the building collapsed and Steve woke up with his ears ringing and his eyes blurring and he _couldn't find Danny_.

"Danny?" he'd shouted into the dark, dusty space.

"Danny?" he'd called when he could only find their (noble and brave and kind) unfortunate victim.

"Danny?" he'd asked when a soft grunt got his attention, making him turn his head this way and that to locate the source of the noise.

"Danny!" he'd cried out in relief when he saw his partner's hand pushing up from a pile of collapsed rubble.

His breath caught in his chest and his eyes misted over as a huge weight was pulled from his chest.

Danny was okay, Danny was here, Danny was _alive_! The mantra repeated over and over in his head. _Danny's okay, Danny's here, Danny's alive._

Steve wasn't going to go on without his partner.

The Navy SEAL scrambled to grasp Danny's outstretched hand, to comfort Danny physically that he was fine and to anchor _himself_ in the knowledge that Danny had survived the IED.

Once he'd gotten over the fact that Danny was _alive_ , Steve managed to get himself together enough to realize that being crushed after Danny's whole "trapped in a coffin" situation a few days earlier probably wasn't helping his claustrophobia one bit right now. He started shifting what he could away from Danny and when Danny was finally uncovered (covered in a thin layer of sawdust, but otherwise looking unharmed), Steve couldn't hold back any instincts he had with his partner.

He acted completely on impulse and sealed his lips over Danny's.

Steve was immediately thinking, _what the Hell are you doing, McGarrett?_ , and pulling away, but Danny put his right hand on Steve's shirt and twisted his fingers in the fabric, effectively trapping Steve and making sure that the SEAL would stay put.

When Steve finally pulled back for air, Danny groaned softly.

"You hurt?" Steve asked, silently looking his partner's body over again, checking for injuries one more time.

"Just my head. Concussion probably," Danny replied with a laugh, "A building came down on us, Steve." He began laughing hysterically.

Steve smiled. "Alright, come on, let's get you up."

Then Steve realized the other problem. "You're stuck."

There was a large slab of concrete pinning Danny's leg from the calf down and Steve couldn't move it on his own.

"I've got to go find something to move this."

"Please, no. Don't leave me alone. Please?" Danny begged, voice still on the edge of hysteria.

"Hey, hey," Steve took Danny's hand in his, just like he had when Danny got off that plane; two fingers on his wrist, checking for the pulse that would reassure him that _yes_ , his partner was very much so alive, and just like he had when he'd pulled Danny from that wooden prison some psycho had forced him in, "I'm just going to get a pipe, I'm still here, okay?"

Danny nodded, "Okay, okay," and then he was reciting baseball lineups and Steve smiled, pecking his forehead before he was quickly moving to find a piece of metal strong enough to life the heavy block.

He had someone to get back to.

He may not yet be able to identify the strange floating feeling in his chest that fluttered when he was near his partner (whatever they were now), but he knew Danno needed him.

And Steve wouldn't let Danny down.


End file.
